Our unconventional life under the same roof.

Posts tagged ‘books’

I’m obsessed with reading. I am constantly talking about books, buying books, and searching for new authors and titles. It’s not just books I’m obsessed with, it’s words. I love the way certain words feel when you speak them. I love the way you pair words together. I love everything about words.

I also have this incessant need to matter, to be known. I don’t know what it is, probably something that has to do with the culture and society we have grown up in, but I’m always worried my life means nothing. I feel that I have to be well-known or famous in order to do anything that will make a lasting impression. I know that isn’t true, of course, but I have these thoughts nonetheless.

That’s why when I read An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, I was encouraged. I love John Green’s writing. When I say: “I think he’s a genius”, I mean it. The metaphors he comes up with, and the topics of his books, are beautiful. He has a real talent, and I admire him for it.

An Abundance of Katherines is about a 17 year old boy named Colin Singleton. Colin is a child prodigy, who has not yet become a genius. As well as not accomplishing the title of “genius” yet, his girlfriend Katherine (of which he has dated 19 girls with the name Katherine, spelled K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E, over the course of his life) breaks up with him. So Colin and his best friend, Hassan, go on a road trip.

Throughout the entire book Colin is struggling with the idea that he’s being left behind, that he’s a washed up child prodigy with no future. He’s struggling with the idea that his life does not matter, while simultaneously trying to get over Katherine 19.

At the end of the book, Colin finally has his Eureka moment. He says all of these things about mattering, and not mattering, and being well-known, and not being well-known. I could type out the entire excerpt for you because I love it so much, but I won’t. I don’t want to ruin anything for those of you who decide to read it, which, by the way, you should. I am just going to include one quote from the book that I absolutely love, and can’t stop thinking about.

“And so we all matter – maybe less than a lot, but always more than none.”

This quote really gave me some comfort. It helped me see that while I’m never going to be well-known, I will be known by some. And what I do matters, who I decide to be matters, my life matters. And so does yours.

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We recently stumbled upon the book Steal Like an Artistby Austin Kleon on a family outing to Barnes & Noble. This short book has been curated down to a non-stop creative kick in the face. As I was reading, I had to fight the urge to keep turning pages and slow down to truly mediate on the message. Additionally, I was faced with the difficult situation of electing what not to highlight on each page.

Out of the numerous highlighted passages, I want to pick one out of a hat and share my impression.

“Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities. The idea the that you can do anything is absolutely terrifying.”

– Steal Like an Artist

“You have complete freedom!” is the most common response I get from clients when I ask what they are looking for in their logo. I used to love that answer, being able to do whatever I wanted seemed like the key ingredient to deliver the perfect logo. But through experience, I have learned: “complete freedom” is the key to a run-of-the-mill product.

We have all heard it said many times: “Think outside the box”. What we don’t think about is, in order to think outside the box we have to get inside it first. We need to ask for the walls, ask for the limitations to work within. In creativity, limitations mean freedom. When we are working within the right limitations we can produce our best work.

I challenge you to see your limitations as creative freedom to work within, not as a barrier keeping you from creating. As Austin says in Steal Like an Artist: “Don’t make excuses for not working–make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now.”